Spiders. Ew, Gross.

Last night, I was trying to get my son down to bed. I knew he was tired and figured he would fall right to sleep if I read him a story. I picked the longest book we have about St. Francis and read it in a halting, monotone voice. 

Unfortunately for me, St. Francis is super interesting despite my purposefully dry expression of his story and Damien was awake for a good hour after his book. 

I digress. 

A couple of things that really moved me.... 

St. Francis had a passion for nature and God's creatures. He believed all of God's creation revealed to us something about God. David and I saw a brown recluse the other day and both of us (on our own, but revealed to one another later..) prayed and asked God why this spider is so important that it needs such a destructive, lethal venom. I mean really, Lord.. You lost me on that one. Gross. 

But I kept praying about it, even today, trying really hard to imagine what God would have us learn from the brown recluse. I tried to give the little nightmarish creature the benefit of the doubt, that God had an idea for it, and that it revealed something about God. The only things that were immediately coming to mind were... hell....satan...wrath of God... sin...

I could see no good in the brown recluse. It was actually starting to bother me that I couldn't find one positive thing to say about it. 

And then it occurred to me. 

A shocking revelation...

Divine intervention at its finest...

I realized....

I am not God. 

Haha, thanks, Lord, for the reminder. 

I am totally serious about the immense humility that I found during this agonizing and disgusting reflection. Who am I to try to judge the worth of God's creation based on my own feelings about it? Who am I to even think I have that power - to assess the good or the worth in something or someone else beyond the simple fact that God thinks His creation is important, and saw that "it was good."  However small the recluse is, it has a powerful self-protection mechanism in its bite/venom. However small it is, it is important in the eyes of God. Important enough to protect.

God gave the recluse its venom. He gave us the cross. Creation reveals the Lord but WE are made in His image! 

However small we are. We are important. However insignificant we feel, we are important in the eyes of God. Today's readings show us that... the shepherd will run after the ONE lost sheep. All of God's creation is important to Him. All of God's creation is sacred, because He breathed life into it and...

It. Is. Good. 

SO, while I may not always understand my purpose and I will never understand the purpose of a brown recluse - ongoing conversion maybe? --  I pray I can see what the Lord wants to teach us in His creation surrounding us, and the people He puts in my life. 

I probably will still stomp on a brown recluse if I see one, though. 

Ain't nobody got time to go the hospital. ;)